Published: Thursday, 30th October, 2008 11:30am

West Fife juniors clubs prepare for Scottish Cup battles

by Simon Harris

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SOMETHING"S got to give when Kelty take on Thornton in what promises to be a massive Fife derby in the second round of the Scottish Cup on Saturday.

Hearts reached that unforgettable Scottish junior cup final at East End Park in 2007, while Hibs went all the way to the semi-finals last season.

Now with both clubs playing their first match in this season"s competition, one of them faces crashing out of the juniors" top cup competition at the first hurdle.

'Outside of Fife, no-one will probably think about this match,' Kelty boss Stevie Leighton told Press Sport.

'But I think that, because of Thornton getting to the semi-finals last season, and what we did the year before, it"s got a bit of glamour to it and there should be a big crowd.

'We"re the two Fife teams who"ve got to the very last stages of the Scottish recently and one of us has to go out.

'Luckily enough, we"ve got home advantage and we"ve had that wee boost of beating West Calder just to get the confidence back on track.'

Along with most of the weekend card, Kelty"s match at Glenrothes fell victim to the weather, leaving the Jambos kicking their heels despite Leighton"s best laid plans.

'It was a bit of a disaster,' he said.

'We thought it was going to be doubtful so we booked the pitches at Dalgety Bay from 12-2pm and arranged a friendly with Crossgates, with the Scottish Cup this weekend in mind.

'Glenrothes didn"t have an inspection until the back of 11am and at that time, it was playable.

"So we cancelled the friendly and went through to Glenrothes at the back of 1pm but there was no way the match was going to go ahead then.

'So we were left unable to play or train.'

Despite this setback, Leighton is looking to welcome back the likes of Ian Mauchlan, Dennis Currie, Tam McGeorge, Gordon Finlay and son Garry Leighton for the Hibs clash and he"s looking forward to the tie.

'The Scottish Cup has always been a big thing for me ever since I played in the final in 1999 and to get to the final again in 2007, especially at East End, was a dream,' he said.

'What"s hurt us most in the past four or five weeks is that while we"ve had a really good 11 on the park, we"ve been lacking in terms of freshening things up from the bench.'

The only West Fife team in action at the weekend was Oakley, who beat Dundee North End 3-0 for their first win since the opening game of the season and manager Steven Kay"s first win as boss.

New signing Lee McMahon scored his first goal for the club and Lee Celentano grabbed a brace but the real hero was defender Kyle Finlayson, who had to go in goal for more than half the game and kept a clean sheet as goalkeeper Martyn Parkin went off injured.

Oakley travel to play Petershill in the Scottish Cup this weekend. In other ties affecting West Fife, Steelend Victoria entertain Camelon while Rosyth travel to play Beith.

In the draw for this season"s Redwood Leisure Cup, Kelty are away to Jeanfield Swifts, Oakley are at home to the winners of the East Craigie/Luncarty tie, Crossgates are at home to Blairgowrie, Steelend will be away to either Downfield or Bankfoot and Rosyth are at Tayport.